


Revel in Speculation

by YellowWomanontheBrink



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Dark Jack, Gen, Prequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1670426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowWomanontheBrink/pseuds/YellowWomanontheBrink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's not always been alone.<br/>He wonders when that happened.<br/>And then, like a switch being flicked and a light bulb lighting up a dark and dusty room, an idea is formed. </p><p>Follow-up (takes place before) "This Story Starts with Dialogue".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revel in Speculation

**Author's Note:**

> So I said that there might be a sequel. I lied. Here, have some in-verse speculation? I have the worst feeling that despite all my efforts, Jack is out of character. Mehhh...  
> This Story Starts with Dialogue- http://archiveofourown.org/works/1079258

To Jack, winter was many, many things, but primarily, it was rest. 

To some, winter meant death— to the elderly and the frail, the delicate leaves on sturdy tree, the first inklings of frost on the ground was a warning of a precarious balance of life and death. It was an omen of their own mortality.

To those not nearly quite so frail, winter was a time of relaxation. No more plowing, no more tilling endless fields. It was a time for family, God, and relaxation. It was a time for repentance and mercy and time spent with family.The hardship was just a price for the rare idleness.

For some, winter meant nothing; just a season past in their buy mayfly lives. Brush the snow off the car, off the buggy, break the ice and sail the ships, fly the planes. But proceed with caution and wariness.

Some people were miserable--it’s cold, I’m sick, this goddamned snow—

But personally, Jack’s favorite, children saw the snow as fun! A phenomenon to anticipate each coming of December, or November. He would be a dead liar if he didn’t say he liked the children best; always had. 

But then, he was dead, and he never claimed to be honest, though he preferred honesty over being a sneaky little shit. It made his life easier to manage without having to keep track of all the little games that spirits liked to play. To him, people were worthy of more respect than the plethora of spirits that had risen and fallen in his time. 

Children always looked out their windows to see glistening white frost lacing the ground like glitter and always reacted, always appreciated it—either by reacting with dread and dismay and glittering excitement. 

Really, he felt that winter was a beautiful work, a wonderful thing.

It was a shame he was so alone in his own opinion. 

In fact, Jack was alone in quite a lot of things.

He scowled and pulled the hood over his head, obscuring his pale youthful face from his non-existent peers. It was more of a comfort thing, even when he had been living as a young man in Finland, the easiest way to ignore the world was to not see it. 

If you didn’t see it, it wasn’t real.

If Jack could pull up his hood and be alone, than maybe there were other people with their hoods up, ignoring the world the way he did when he just didn’t feel like he could face the rest of the world taking comfort in their own loved ones.

Sometimes he would sit against the walls of graffitied buildings, between lines of druggies high on acid or pot or opium, and sometimes he would blow a breeze on their neck and paint frost paintings across their noses and their addled minds would cook up a story left from the dregs of their emaciated childhood and they would see him. He would always leave before they came to their sensibilities. The potheads had no time for fairy tales and fun times, not when their fun times only consisted of their next fix.

Believe what you see, and ignore what you don’t.

Such a shame that much of the world had adopted that philosophy. If there was still as much faith in the world a there had been in his miserably short lifetime; perhaps he wouldn’t have to lower himself to dreaming of being appreciated and loved by children. 

It was great fun. Every time he saw a child’s face illuminate with love and happiness and joy in his season, because of his season, whether it was a snow day, or sledding, or the sweatshop being closed down because of frozen machinery, or sleeping in, or reading a book by a fireplace on a day off while the snow drifted down sleepily...

Especially when they came to play.

Even when circumstances demanded that they couldn’t. 

Jack always paid special attention to children who couldn’t come play with him; he painted pictures for them with his staff and rattled their window with wind. He’d grant their Winter Wishes and let them go to peace on quiet, peaceful nights. Children sung his names in songs and rhymes and never, ever believed. 

It was that little thing that brought the Guardians to Jack’s attention.

Of course, every spirit knew about the oh-so-special Guardians of Childhood. 

Jack knew their master far better.

Prince Lunanoff, a strange being not of Earth, manipulating the people of his world into feeding him and his lackey’s belief. Belief was a large part of honesty, but Jack liked it better when it wasn’t limited to children only. Jack was no Christian saint, and he couldn’t help feeling a little resentment towards the four strangers for having so much belief.

Winter chose Jack. He loved it like he loved the children, like he loved the glisten of innocence and the twinkle of kindness in strangers’ eyes.

An outsider chose the Guardians, and the fact that they seemed to transcend the natural Earthen spirits irked him beyond all belief. He knew he loved the children more than the Guardians ever would; it had been hundreds of years since he had ever seen any of them even speaking to children, and yet, so many of the children entrusted blind faith to them.

But then, belief was blind faith.

If children believed in Jack, that faith wouldn’t be blind. It would be reciprocated, and rewarded, not with bribery, but with everlasting experience, with wisdom and fun and childhood and everything childhood was supposed to be. It would be given faith in turn. 

If the Guardian were really doing their job, their belief wouldn’t be so tenuous, so fickle. If so many children weren’t ignored…belief would never fade, would last steadily forever. They would never want for belief.

Maybe they would have eventually become spirits in their own way—the Embodiment of Wonder and Discipline, maybe, definitely, as well the Master of Dreams, but they failed so greatly in their duties as spirits it ignited a cold rage in Jack. Where he came, spirits that failed in staying true to their Centers died, washed aside by the wayside. 

When had Jack ever lost his Center?

He hadn’t, he bitterly realized. Jack Frost, like so many other spirits, had been eclipsed by the Guardian of Childhood. 

He was Jack Frost, fun and lighthearted, and everything that the Guardians were not. 

He was also terribly lonesome. 

Jack didn’t even want a large horde of believers. Just a few, just a few true believers, and he would be happy forever. The children that believed in him would be happy and live well. Despite his preferred lifestyle, Jack had quite a bit of power— at least, he was pretty sure, compared to the other spirits he had seen. It was why he was ignored by other spirits. An old spirit with such a young face bespoke of deceit. 

But children wouldn’t see that. They’d see a friend. Maybe a brother. Jack had never stopped being one, not since he had died and the Winter had resurrected him. If the children saw him...and the Guardians did not find out that he was essentially kidnapping vulnerable children, it would be great. FRom what Jack had seen, vulnerable children want someone...a friend, a brother, a childhood. Otherwise, they would end up just like adults. Bitter, sad, and alone, only able to alleviate their own misery in another’s. Jack was fun times, family, rest. A reprise from everything about the modern world that sucked. Jack could give all that and more, and all they had to do was believe.

Jack’s children would be good. They would never be alone again, they would find comfort in each other and the hoarfrost and the castle he would build for them. If they wanted, he’d even let them go. He could give them everything the Guardians couldn’t.

And most importantly, he wouldn’t be alone.

Flinging his hood back, and smiling as brightly as sunlight reflecting off of his snow, he leapt into the air and began to plot.

This would be great fun.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment! Kudos? Drop a line? Whatever, you're beautiful for reading this far. ^_^
> 
> This Story Starts with Dialogue- http://archiveofourown.org/works/1079258


End file.
